Suzy - it's ok to scan the pics, I think Dave has them in a box on one of the shelves under the stairs - see whether he has a copy of the one of Sue, me, Dave and Mick as little kids with that bicycle + sidecar

Otherwise - someone asked about some pix of the catvan. I think there may be at least one on the Cat Gallery under "Rudi's stuff" on our www.catbikes.ch website.
I also keep meaning to upload some pix of the Yamaha 3 cyl. bikes he made for the Yamaha factory but no sooner than I mean to do it, something crops up. (Like now - downloading, restoring and repairing and uploading well over half a million files after some swine hacked into and destroyed a friends's numismatic website just two weeks after he passed away... when I finally managed to block him, he sent a mailbomb to my friend's email address but the b*****d used at least two anonymous IP servers to send it.

something crops up. (Like now - downloading, restoring and repairing and uploading well over half a million files after some swine hacked into and destroyed a friends's numismatic website just two weeks after he passed away... when I finally managed to block him, he sent a mailbomb to my friend's email address but the b*****d used at least two anonymous IP servers to send it.

Suzy - it's ok to scan the pics, I think Dave has them in a box on one of the shelves under the stairs - see whether he has a copy of the one of Sue, me, Dave and Mick as little kids with that bicycle + sidecar

Otherwise - someone asked about some pix of the catvan. I think there may be at least one on the Cat Gallery under "Rudi's stuff" on our www.catbikes.ch website.I also keep meaning to upload some pix of the Yamaha 3 cyl. bikes he made for the Yamaha factory but no sooner than I mean to do it, something crops up. (Like now - downloading, restoring and repairing and uploading well over half a million files after some swine hacked into and destroyed a friends's numismatic website just two weeks after he passed away... when I finally managed to block him, he sent a mailbomb to my friend's email address but the b*****d used at least two anonymous IP servers to send it.

Hello everyone.
I was just writing an email to a friend in the US who may have to go to Finland on
business and remembered two things that happened when we were racing there.
Thought I may as well post them here as well, for posterity 'n all...

At one Finnish GP Siggi Schauzu used the long straight road between the circuit (which was actually closed-off public roads) and the Russian border as a test road for his sidecar outfit. The road was about 5 miles long and as straight as a die. Well, the Russians saw this silver bullet-like affair hurtling down the road towards them at the first of the border posts and actually shot at him... He came back to the paddock very shaken and showing us the scars on his fairing where the bullets had hit at an angle.

A funnier thing I remember about the GP in Finland are the "burning bogs". The toilets in the paddock were simply two 3ftx3ft wooden boxes (no doors, so I got a local spectator whom we knew from previous years to bring a couple of old sheets and nails and I made "doors" out of them) and a hole in the ground. Of course having over 150 riders plus their mechanics and other team members use them.. well the holes got filled up pretty quickly so you had to be careful where you stood. The floor was covered with crumpled up newspapers as "protection". Well, on the Sunday, after the race, Barry Sheene came round asking for petrol donations, just a few drops per team. 30 minutes later the loos were up in flames.
When the police (who were there all the time for some reason) made inquiries, we were all standing around and another of the most famous riders said, po-faced: "Well, I saw one of the police go in to the toilet smoking a cigarette. When he came out he didn't have the cigarette any more and the loos were suddenly in flames. Perhaps he dropped it on the newspapers on the floor...." I remember the policeman, the only one who spoke English, looking at him and waving his finger at him to and fro, saying "nooo, nooo, nooo"...
I actually have a newspaper cutting in my album, with a pic of the loos on fire, which our friend the spectator mentioned above sent me, together with a translation.

Must get back to my numismatics - I am currently translating a book on a certain type of ancient coinage, plus doing the last 100 coin identifications for a "coin ID customer" then adding more coins to wildwinds.com

Hello everyone.I was just writing an email to a friend in the US who may have to go to Finland onbusiness and remembered two things that happened when we were racing there.Thought I may as well post them here as well, for posterity 'n all...

At one Finnish GP Siggi Schauzu used the long straight road between the circuit (which was actually closed-off public roads) and the Russian border as a test road for his sidecar outfit. The road was about 5 miles long and as straight as a die. Well, the Russians saw this silver bullet-like affair hurtling down the road towards them at the first of the border posts and actually shot at him... He came back to the paddock very shaken and showing us the scars on his fairing where the bullets had hit at an angle.

A funnier thing I remember about the GP in Finland are the "burning bogs". The toilets in the paddock were simply two 3ftx3ft wooden boxes (no doors, so I got a local spectator whom we knew from previous years to bring a couple of old sheets and nails and I made "doors" out of them) and a hole in the ground. Of course having over 150 riders plus their mechanics and other team members use them.. well the holes got filled up pretty quickly so you had to be careful where you stood. The floor was covered with crumpled up newspapers as "protection". Well, on the Sunday, after the race, Barry Sheene came round asking for petrol donations, just a few drops per team. 30 minutes later the loos were up in flames. When the police (who were there all the time for some reason) made inquiries, we were all standing around and another of the most famous riders said, po-faced: "Well, I saw one of the police go in to the toilet smoking a cigarette. When he came out he didn't have the cigarette any more and the loos were suddenly in flames. Perhaps he dropped it on the newspapers on the floor...." I remember the policeman, the only one who spoke English, looking at him and waving his finger at him to and fro, saying "nooo, nooo, nooo"... I actually have a newspaper cutting in my album, with a pic of the loos on fire, which our friend the spectator mentioned above sent me, together with a translation.

Must get back to my numismatics - I am currently translating a book on a certain type of ancient coinage, plus doing the last 100 coin identifications for a "coin ID customer" then adding more coins to wildwinds.com

So bye for the moment !Dane

Hi Dane, good to see you back with us. Anecdotes from you top level guys - we love 'em.....can we please have some more sometime.

Hi Dane. I just love this pic. It looks like you´ve just told Wolfgang and Helmut a dirty joke and the don´t know whether to laugh or not. You seem to have known them quite well, so maybe you can tell us a bit about them. Hope I´m not imposing.BTW, we met a few times, but then, you must have met thousands of people during your racing years and I was just another face in the crowd. Always loved your style and admired you tremendously.Hope you and Rudy are happy and well.

Dane is as clever as she is beautiful. She is an expert on ancient coins and is often called upon to identify them. She has also translated complex works on numismatics. The CAT Crescent must have been a very effective bit of kit. Apparently Rudi and Dane established a track record at Modena that was never broken.

We bought an outfit from Rudi Kurt in 1967 and raced it the whole 1968 season in France. It was a fabricated steel-sheet chassis seam welded with fabricated Earles front end and used Dunlop racing tires designed for Mini Coopers. The engine was a highly tuned 500cc BMW that Rudi had developed to be pretty much equaling that of a Rennsport as far as power and torque. We traveled to Switzerland and met Kurt at a large farm house where he had all kinds of machinery, and I remembered that he was very gracious and very helpful. We did not have to do anything the the outfit, it truly was race ready.My friend Dominique Brejat was going to have his wife as the passenger, but she developed a bubble at about mid waist, so Dominique asked me if I would not mind to substitute until the outcome would be settled.

The machine handled very nicely and we were quite competitive, racing at venues such as Magny Cours, Bourg en Bresse and several hillclimbs in which we actually won. I kept fond memories of these times, they were simply great.

Well, I'm only, like, three months late to say thanks to bsracer for his greetz from Rob North. Just popped by to nick a picture for someone in the US. I need to print one out and sign it for him.

By the way, a Swiss bloke wrote to us a couple of months ago and told us that he'd bought a CAT sidecar model with teeny little figures of Rudi and I made by a small French company. With a lot of googling I managed to find the company that makes them (along with a very strange translation from the original French description) and ordered a couple - one for us, one for our friend Don in the USA, plus a Lotus model for Him on the Sofa. In case anyone is interested (no, we do not get any commission ) they are sold by grandprixmodels.com in the UK who also sell other outfits e.g. Biland's BEO, a couple of BMWs, Chris Vincent's BSA (I think I saw that one there) and several others.

Well, I'm only, like, three months late to say thanks to bsracer for his greetz from Rob North. Just popped by to nick a picture for someone in the US. I need to print one out and sign it for him.

By the way, a Swiss bloke wrote to us a couple of months ago and told us that he'd bought a CAT sidecar model with teeny little figures of Rudi and I made by a small French company. With a lot of googling I managed to find the company that makes them (along with a very strange translation from the original French description) and ordered a couple - one for us, one for our friend Don in the USA, plus a Lotus model for Him on the Sofa. In case anyone is interested (no, we do not get any commission ) they are sold by grandprixmodels.com in the UK who also sell other outfits e.g. Biland's BEO, a couple of BMWs, Chris Vincent's BSA (I think I saw that one there) and several others.

A small contribution from me is this, my one and only pic of Kurth/Rowe. Taken, I believe, at the John Player International at Silverstone 1973. I remember seeing the outfit ontop of the Citroen DS estate and thinking at the time that it was an unusual way of saving money on transport costs! Didn't really appreciate the ingenuity of it all back then as an 18year old!

Like this thread, I spoke to Dane a few years ago as she gave my dads details to a lady in 65/6. He gave the lady a test as she wanted to be a passenger and my dad lived near brands. I have a picture that the lady did of my dad on his outfit. It must be 66 as its the kneeler with Fritz Scheidegger's fairings on it. I am hoping to rebuild all 3 of my dads outfits, that how i got hold of Dane as i need the fairings for the 66 bike. But the molds have long gone. Dane kindly gave me John Robinsons addres but i went and lost it. Fool i know but still keep looking.

Hi Kevin I reckon you will enjoy researching your dad's racing and restoring the outfits...what a great project. It should be very rewarding and well worth doing

David

Yes great projects. Damned expensive tho. None have engines!!! So after the lottery win i shall have 2 Manx engines and a Rennsport. Closely followd by a vinyard in france and a tax free life in the UK and Huw Heffners house n playmates. Sorry thats the red wine talking........will get the bikes running tho.

Without wishing to blow my own trumpet keep your eyes open for the latest edition (Feb/March 2011) of the English retro fashion mag with guess who on the cover . "Men's File". No, it's nothing like Playboy but one of the pics of me in my wilder days DOES have me showing a bit of leg whilst balanced precariously on a steel railing on the prom at Douglas ... I haven't seen it yet though the editor has put a couple of examples in the post for me.

Without wishing to blow my own trumpet keep your eyes open for the latest edition (Feb/March 2011) of the English retro fashion mag with guess who on the cover . "Men's File". No, it's nothing like Playboy but one of the pics of me in my wilder days DOES have me showing a bit of leg whilst balanced precariously on a steel railing on the prom at Douglas ... I haven't seen it yet though the editor has put a couple of examples in the post for me.

I'm about to leg it down the newsagents. Oh, and good to hear from you again

Without wishing to blow my own trumpet keep your eyes open for the latest edition (Feb/March 2011) of the English retro fashion mag with guess who on the cover . "Men's File". No, it's nothing like Playboy but one of the pics of me in my wilder days DOES have me showing a bit of leg whilst balanced precariously on a steel railing on the prom at Douglas ... I haven't seen it yet though the editor has put a couple of examples in the post for me.

Look forward to that , Dane , think i'll pop along to W.H. Smiths and have a look ..............................

I spoke to Dane a few years ago about my dad, a lady that was interested in being a passenger back in the 60's spoke to Dane and asked who could be a safe bet for a first-time out in a chair. Somehow my dads name cropped up and he help this lady find her feet. Sorry to say my dad cant remember the name of the lady nor could Dane remember my dad, so i have found some pics of dad and put them on flikr.

Russell, I was just about to post the same link! Just finished my shift, curled up on my bunk to watch 'Continental Circus' on my iPhone for the millionth time, on impulse put in a google search for 'sidecar tt 1969, number 56', which drew a blank, but offered the Dane Rowe link instead. After reading the article, outfit no.5 in '69 tt is filmed in CC rounding Governer's. ps. anyone know who the crew no.56 are, who crashed coming out of the dip in '69?

pps. found it eventually, 1969 sidecar tt no. 56 was R Coxon and C Newbold on a 500 bsa

Russell, I was just about to post the same link! Just finished my shift, curled up on my bunk to watch 'Continental Circus' on my iPhone for the millionth time, on impulse put in a google search for 'sidecar tt 1969, number 56', which drew a blank, but offered the Dane Rowe link instead. After reading the article, outfit no.5 in '69 tt is filmed in CC rounding Governer's. ps. anyone know who the crew no.56 are, who crashed coming out of the dip in '69?

[quote name='Russell Burrows' date='Nov 9 2012, 16:03' post='6017637']
Dane popping up on the French GP film triggered a bit of a search:
Hello Russel,
Have a look there :http://www.ina.fr/vi...-france.fr.html
Enjoy !